Those who have visited the House of Lords as tourists may remember a notice entreating them not to sit on the Woolsack. Nobody at all will remember a light novel of thirty years ago in which the hero, detained in the Palace of Westminster for contempt of Parliament, was found on the Woolsack passionately entwined with his girlfriend. Reader, I wrote it. I well recall that a film producer of modest fame expressed an interest and asked me whether I thought the House of Lords would lend the chamber and the Woolsack for filming. Eager though I was to sell the film rights, I had to say I thought this unlikely. Not long afterwards the producer died suddenly and that was that.

LRB 11 December 1997 | PDF Download